The Importance of Jeff Beck

Legendary rock guitarist dies at 78

Jeff Beck, one of rock’s most acclaimed guitarists, died on Tuesday after contracting bacterial meningitis. He was 78 years old. The news was announced in a statement released by his publicist on behalf of his family after a notice was posted on Beck’s Facebook page.

Born in Wallington, England, Beck was of a generation of British guitarists influenced by American blues. To this day he has influenced thousands of players, beginning his professional career with The Yardbirds at the start of the first British Invasion in the early Sixties. Beck replaced Eric Clapton in The Yardbirds in 1965, after Clapton left to join John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. In 1966, Jimmy Page joined the band and the twin guitar attack of Beck and Page existed for a year, as Beck was fired in 1967.

Roger The Engineer was the only full length Yardbirds record that Beck played on every song. The first single released with Beck as their new guitarist was “Heart Full Of Soul” (written by Graham Gouldman of 10CC). Beck’s playing on songs including “Over Under Sideways Down,” “Shapes of Things,” “Happenings Ten Years Ago,” and others was both technically amazing, yet soulful and gritty, drawing on the influences as diverse as Les Paul, Muddy Waters, and Django Reinhardt.

The musical through line for Beck, from his work with the Yardbirds to his solo career, was that Beck made sounds with his guitar that few of his peers could rival. He never sang, but used as instrument as a singular voice, conveying every range of emotion possible. Of the British rock guitarists he sits in the pantheon along with Clapton, Page, and Pete Townshend.

Beck’s solo debut came when he formed the Jeff Beck Group. On their 1968 debut album, Truth, we were introduced to Rod Stewart and Ron Wood, who Beck brought together to form his first solo project. JGB released four albums, before he dropped the group in the 70s and released what fans (myself included) and music writers cite as his best two albums, Blow By Blow (1975) and Wired (1976), two albums took his career into an even higher place, where he merged his love of the blues, rock and jazz to create two “fusion classics,” Blow By Blow and Wired.

Beck hired George Martin to produce Blow By Blow after Beck heard Mahavishnu Orchestra’s 1974 Apocalypse. It was Beck’s first all instrumental album that included a stand out cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers.” Martin and Beck again worked on Wired, with amazing players including keyboardists Jan Hammer and Max Middleton, drummers Narada Michael Walden and Ed Greene, and bassist Wilbur Bascomb. It featured a beautiful cover of the Charles Mingus classic “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat,” Beck’s tribute to Led Zeppelin, “Led Boots,” and the slightly funky “Come Dancing.”

Guitarist and singer-songwriter Warren Haynes, writing about Beck on Beck’s Facebook page summarizes what many musicians felt about the classics that wer Blow By Blow and Wired.

It came at a good time for me as I had been playing guitar for 3 or 4 years at that point and was just starting to discover a lot of instrumental music but none of us were prepared for the huge stylistic leap we were about to hear in Jeff’s playing. His last studio recording prior was the collaborative Beck, Bogert & Appice which was great like all his previous works but gave no indication as to what doors would be opened up with Blow By Blow. Every guitar player I knew was mesmerized. This changed everything. We were all dropping back the needle incessantly to try to learn anything we could from Blow By Blow. And then along comes Wired, a year later, which took his playing to even greater heights. I think the most remarkable thing about Jeff Beck as a guitarist however is the way he continued to grow and expand his own style year after year, album after album, in a way that I can’t recall anyone else ever doing — EVER!

You may have read other accounts of Beck’s passing in which he is referred to as “the guitarists guitarist.” Beck had a superb career dotted with hits and misses, and a whole lot of experimentation including a wide range of musical and studio collaborations that included working with producers Martin, Nile Rogers and Arthur Baker, a “super-group” collab with Carmine Appice and Tim Bogert (Vanilla Fudge), and work with singers Macy Gray, Joss Stone, Imelda May, and Imogen Heap.

Beck’s guitar playing abilities were magnificent. He had a singular sound and was always technically adventurous and innovative. Playing swiftly or playing slowly, no matter what genre he’d take on, he’d always paint a broad swath of emotions with his expressive playing.